Our Story
Speaking Waters is a continuation of Mark Parrish's lifework. It is part of a long chain of projects that centers around Parrish’s commitment to experiential art by strengthening the union of the “inward” protected perch and the “outward” gathering field – facilitating situations of discovery.
For Parrish, the 90s were about urban introspectiveness and pushing the boundaries of the inner-city social experience. In the middle of the decade, he created PointB Worklodge in Brooklyn, New York. Over the next 20 years, PointB invited like-minded and globally diverse creative professionals to access eight fully equipped live-work studios (Solotats). Much different than a typical art residency of the time, lodgers could repeat their stay as often as needed as well as exchange artistic, social, and cultural concepts.
The mid-2000s began another period of introspectiveness for Parrish. He started to focus more on how we all fit into the larger organism of the natural world and how to facilitate an experience of unity with nature. His first creations were portable tent structures – private “perch” studios in the field – but eventually he realized that in addition to location, time and the relationship between the two are crucial factors in the search for this unity.
While different locales provide access to a variety of resources to help us in our search, longer periods of time in these places allow us to change our habits and modes of thinking. Parrish realized he needed to create something more permanent, yet still mobile, which would answer the need of scientists and artists for quick access to temporary locations. This led to the creation of the hanging Skypod in 2016 and after that the versatile Unitat pod in 2017.
Speaking Waters is the second collaboration with PointB regarding the Unitat Project, after the test run at High Valley Center near Rhinebeck, New York (Summer/Fall 2018).
